Tactical voting

In voting systems, tactical voting (or strategic voting) is when a voter represents their preferences on the ballot differently from their sincere preferences in order to gain a more favorable outcome. Any minimally useful voting system has some form of tactical voting. However, the type of tactical voting and the extent to which it effects the timbre of the campaign and the results of the election vary dramatically from system to system.

Burying is a type of strategic voting in which a voter insincerely ranks an alternative lower in the hopes of defeating it. For example, in the Borda count, a voter may insincerely rank a strong alternative last in order to help their preferred alternative beat it.

Push-over or turkey-raising is a type of strategic voting in which a voter ranks a weak alternative higher, but not in the hopes of getting it elected. For example, in a bloc vote where multiple votes are required, a voter may insincerely vote for a candidate they perceive as unlikely to win, in order to help their preferred candidate win.

Of these three, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are most similar. Many
people who prefer the Liberal Democrats vote for the Labour candidate
where Labour is stronger and vice-versa where the Liberal Democrats
are stronger, in order to prevent the Conservative candidate from
winning.

"Tactical voting is fine in theory and as an intellectual discussion in the drawing room or living rooms around the country, but when you actually get to polling day and you have to vote against your principles, then it is much harder to do".

Steven Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach argued in a paper in Science magazine in 2000 that approval voting was the system least amenable to tactical perturbations. This may be related to the fact that approval voting does not permit preferences ('likes' or 'dislikes') to be stated at all, permitting only a statement of tolerances, that is, "which candidate could you stand to see win", as opposed to "which candidate would you like to see win".

Fact-index.com financially supports the Wikimedia Foundation. Displaying this page does not burden Wikipedia hardware resources.This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.